Paul Krugman: "I told you so, again"

Even Cassandra wasn't this right. Re-reading the economist on bond yields, the stimulus and GOP obstructionism

By Andrew Leonard
Salon.com

Reading Paul Krugman's blog these days is like looking into a hall of mirrors, infinitely refracting the same message: I told you so. Today he offers a perfect example. Noting Morgan Stanley's confession that its prediction that U.S. Treasury bond yields would rise sharply in 2010 had been a "mistake," Krugman agilely linked to a post he had written in November 2009 expressing strong doubts about that very forecast.

But even better, if you go back and read that post, you will find Krugman digging up a Morgan Stanley analysis of the housing market dating back to 2006 calmly dismissing any chance of "a much-feared decline in prices on a nationwide basis." Among those who had been warning of a housing bubble: Paul Krugman.

But this is small time stuff compared to the really-big-I-told-you-so. On January 8, 2009, before President Obama had even been inaugurated, Krugman wrote a column warning that Obama's economic plan -- the stimulus -- fell "well short of what's needed."

(More here.)